THE PLAY WHAT I WROTE. Wyndhams Theatre

London

THE PLAY WHAT I WROTE
by Hamish McColl, Sean Foley and Eddie Braben

Wyndhams Theatre
Runs 1hr 55min One interval

TICKETS 020 7369 1735
Review Timothy Ramsden 6 November 2001

Blow cheeks, and crack your ribs – a show that's fresh, clever and sublimely funny.A decade ago I trekked round suburban Oxford searching for a show called Moose. It was quite funny and apparently got funnier during its run. The Right Size performed it; you won't have to trek far to find them now. What's more, if there's any justice (and they have sufficient stamina) their new show will run and run.

In The Play What I Wrote their two actors (The Right Size has downsized since 1991) capture the essence of TV favourites Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. It's not just their double-act interplay, McColl the straight man by whom one measures Foley's comical contortions. It's also a loveable quality - no wonder they start and end the show in bed together. And Foley's nonsense song about dreams points up the surreal quality of their routines, incorporating material from Morecambe and Wise's celebrated scriptwriter Eddie Braben.

The Right Size neither look nor sound much like the originals; this only makes more hilarious the moments they slip into Eric and Ernie's routines. It hardly matters whether you know the originals. Their spirit lives on in a show skilfully directed by someone Eric might have known as Kenneth Brainwave

Foley and McColl are joined by Toby Jones, perfectly formed though not actually The Right Size. This inspired lunatic passes himself off as a theatre producer, a female Hollywood star and a dog, all the time just seeking to play his harmonica.

Every week a star is borne into the show, as the famous were imported to be made fools of by Eric and Ernie, safe in their hosts' lack of malice. The ungrammatical dramas what Ernie supposedly wrote never struck me as the funniest part of their shows, and Foley and McColl bravely - and Wisely - end on a touching smile rather than in roaring laughter. Still, when Richard Wilson got his head cut off in Hamish's revolutionary drama A Tight Squeeze for the Scarlet Pimple, you know how he felt: you'd been laughing your own head off for the best part of two hours.

Sean: Sean Foley
Hamish: Hamish McColl
Everyone who isn't Sean or Hamish: Toby Jones, except:
A Special Guest Star: Him (or Her) self

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Designer: Alice Power
Lighting: Jon Linstrum
Choreographer: Irving Davies
New Songs: Gary Yershon

2001-11-07 01:31:33